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Is God / Jesus to blame … ?

Deaf singer Mandy Harvey made headlines around the world after being put straight through to the finals of America’s Got Talent. But when she first took to the stage, she received death threats from within the deaf community for promoting a “hearing” activity.

“I used to get some pretty strongly-worded letters and death threats,” she reveals. “I got a lot of backlash from certain people in that community because I was promoting oralism.”

Oralism is the name given to the practise of educating deaf people to use speech and lip-reading rather than sign language.

“It’s like saying ‘you’re not one of us’. Although some deaf people use it to describe themselves, I wouldn’t call anyone oral out of the blue and because I can communicate with speech as well as sign, I’ve had it said to me, which has taken me aback.”

Harvey got the sheet music for Come Home by OneRepublic and with an electric tuner sang each note individually. Every time she made a mistake and the light didn’t turn green to indicate she was in tune, she started again.

It took her 10 hours, but when she sang it through one final time, the green light didn’t waver. “I couldn’t believe it,” she says. “My perfect pitch and muscle memory all came together.”

The night she appeared on NBC, she decided not to reveal that she was deaf and took to the stage armed with a ukulele. “I was very concerned that they would just judge me on a pity vote instead of who I really am as a musician and I want to be viewed as a musician first,” she says.

As well as having perfect pitch – Harvey can find middle C in her mind then move to the required note and sing it – her experience of performing has given her a new perspective.

“Losing my hearing was always my biggest fear, so what’s the worst that can happen, sing the wrong notes? Who cares, it’s not going to kill you.

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Is God / Jesus to blame … ?

“ she received death threats from within the deaf community for promoting a “hearing” activity.”